Comments/Ratings for a Single Item

ahhhhhhhhhaaaa lol!!
so, SRC is funny and on the level wow, didn't see that coming :)
only one thing to do now, give it an 'excellent' :)
god bless SRC, and please forgive all those doubters he he (*whistles*)
(oh btw, pretty cool idea about the rules being mysterious)

Christine Bagley-Jones says:

so, SRC is funny and on the level

As for the idea of a limited-information game where the rules are what is in question, that is a terrible idea. This eliminates all strategy and all tactics. Period. If you don't even know which pieces are safe from capture, then you can't even think about forming a plan. It is all the randomness of Poker without any of the strategy. So, even in the case that neither player knows the rules, it is basically like the card game 'War' (which no one older than about 8 years old plays.)

And what about all this nonsense about it being older than Chess, and indeed the original form of Chess from which Orthodox Chess is supposedly derived? Preposterous! And the authors have also denied that that aspect is a joke. Promoting a bad game is one thing; there are lots of bad games around here. Deliberately pushing bald-faced lies to promote your own game is quite another.

Since the game can and is being played, the pages should not be deleted. However, the author(s) should clarify what it is and what it isn't, and remove all outright lies. As for the positive ratings the game has gotten by master-level and grand-master-level players, (the only positive ratings from anyone who has actually played it,) it only stands to reason that they would want to premote the game that they understand but refuse to enlighten us about.

No, it is not obvious that the historical assertions concerning this game
are a joke, since the inventor(s) themselves have denied this very point. 
There is one post here from Gregory Topov dating writings about this game
to 1066.  As I recall, there are more similar claims, but they were posted
before this game had an official page, so they are old comments I do not
know how to get to.

And, by all means, don't do anything, if that is your inclination, but my
rating of 'poor' stands unless someone can make an intelligent argument
on the game's behalf.

With Stanley Random Chess, there appear to be self-appointed prophets having divine knowledge of what the secrets to the game are. How unappealing. For the game to have some kind of real value to it, the rules behind it must be recorded somewhere, and disclosed within a fair amount of time, so nobody has reason to call anybody else a cheat, or the Rulemaker an idiot. Although 'New Eleusis' has value as a mathematical game, I don't see the same thing with a chess game of this kind.

BTW, the difference between 'Eleusis' and 'New Eleusis' was the creation of an extra role - somebody would be a self-declared prophet interceding between the cardplayers and the rulemaker, and so long as his prophecies were correct, he garnered points for himself, and remained prophet.

seriously, you need to spend a weekend with kate moss if you didn;t see the
'tongue in cheek' side of SRC.
anyway, if you started playing this game, you would have to play someone
who knew the rules right?! (lol)
if you started playing say on brainking server or whatever it is called,
would you eventually be able to know all the rules?

• Mornington Crescent. See http://www.dunx.org/mc/ for example.
• Mao, a card game where the rules are not revealed to new players. See http://www.pagat.com/eights/mao.html (and Mao is definitely not a joke)

I looked at the mao game and I think that one will be easier to catch than
SRC. Just curious how will the cheating be prevented in such games.

I consider that SRC can not be learned by playing at all.
Else it needs some consistency which does not exist in SRC.
For example white moves 1st d2-d4 does not work every time. How will a SRC
grand master see that in advance? And playing of someone who knows all
rules against someone who does not is quite unfair. At least someone who
knows the rules should says this in advance of a game of SRC. Then the
player not knowing the rules can at least try to learn them.
And another thing is the complete lack of example SRC games.

Another thing is how the client works at www.schemingmind.com.
If a player makes a move, which is illegal in the case of the SRC rule
set, it makes a random move from all available legal moves.

Two players playing SRC who don't know the rules is very funny.

The other game (MC) is just a nonsense. How can someone keep a '125
volume' ruleset in the mind? And what is the playing material for that
game?

well, not a complete lack of example games, there is one here.
http://geocities.com/verdrahciretop/src8.html
i havn't checked it out, and i am guessing it teaches you nothing, but
not sure, 
as i havn't looked at it.
At the end of that game, there are another 2 example games, but you must
 be member to see (free membership i think)

For most of us, Internet costs money, and playing a game of Stanley Random
Chess would certainly be bound to eat up a lot of time, and therefore cost
a lot of money.  Although you said that SRC is amusing, do you really think
it is worth the money to play it?  For instance, let's put the shoe on the
other foot.  Suppose I (or someone you don't know, but whom I were to
approve of, and you had absolutely no way of locating that person) were
the one to define the 'secret rules' behind Stanley Random Chess, and
she alone were to decide on whether your moves were acceptable or not. 
That kind of a setup could certainly have the potential of driving up
costs, don't you think?  Not to mention 'bandwidth' in the form of
noise, or near-noise.

Would you still find the game amusing enough to play for a few months, or
a few years?

(Now for an 'opening the floodgates' argument:)

The next hypothetical offers us even more food for thought:  suppose a
hundred thousand people or more found my version of Stanley Random Chess
(with my own list of approved but anonymous rulemakers) engaging, would
the increased consumption of bandwidth be worth it to you, to call it
amusing?  Or, if the ante is upped to an even higher stake, would it be
worth it to society?  After all, if robots could be programmed to play
Stanley Random Chess - not that they are /that/ creative - and even if
they would be answerable to their owners alone, and not to society, would
you still find it amusing?

yep, most chess players have no sense of humor alright lol
he never said he was going to play the game, so i guess he stills finds it
amusing. i find it amusing, and i find your post amusing too :)
i get the internet, regardless of if i was to play src or not, i don't
really see a cost in it, maybe there is, who cares, and anyway, who would
seriously play src ha ha, but if you did, i think that is great :)
let us know how it goes :)

The rules are honestly not that difficult to find out, and most players willing to take the time to play one or two games at schemingmind.com will discover them quickly. Nobody should be allowed to question the authenticity and legitimacy of Stanley Random Chess without first trying the game online at schemingmind.com.

I have personally played several games, and can appreciate and understand the game's appeal! New players should not give up too quickly, and indeed the best way to learn the game is simply play one or two games with experienced players.

[This comment is hidden pending review. It will eventually be deleted or displayed.]

First of all my apologies if my promoting this chess variant has caused any offence to members of this site, I can assure you that this hasn't ever been my intention. I do realise that SRC is not a conventional chess variant, however I would hope that people who were sufficiently enlightened to change the rules of orthodox chess would be prepared to at least consider the possibilities.

Whether or not this page remains on this site is clearly an editorial decision, however Stanley Random Chess is a chess variant. I fail to see why some people find it distasteful, but then many orthodox chess players find CrazyHouse and Fischer Random Chess distasteful in the same way...

I can assure everyone here that Stanley Random Chess is a real game, which is currently being played and enjoyed by dozens of people. The rules are occult - nobody knows them; whether you choose to believe that this is because they are contained in hundred year old bound leather volumes which are only available to members of a secret society, or because they are encoded in a computer algorithm on the SchemingMind server is up to you - the important thing is that it doesn't matter, you don't need to know the rules to play the game... that's the whole point.

Regarding the previous posts here - part of the fun of SRC is discussing the mythology around the game, and a common style for this prose seems to have evolved. I do recognise the names of some of the posters here from SchemingMind, and if I am correct in identifying these people then these posts have been made by discrete individuals. I would urge you to check IP addresses if possible before taking any further action.

I would at least recommend that your editorial policy insist that all 
gamepages be mainly serious and rational in describing the rules, board,
pieces, history, etc.  In this case, it should clearly state that Stanley
Random Chess is a game where the rules are hidden information.

Advocates of this game are not winning any new fans by having their game
genuinely mistaken for a hoax or a practical joke by intelligent peers. 
Furthermore, frustrating people who show a serious interest with endless
layers of presumably funny or witty bullshit is neither humorous nor
clever.  A number of people have received extremely-far-from-straight
answers to their straight questions.  The humor in their treatment escapes
me completely.